In the presence of The Queen, The Duchess of Cornwall, Patron of Medical Detection Dogs, attended its 10th Anniversary celebration and a demonstration by the charity's bio detection dogs to showcase their ability to detect the odour of human disease.

The Duchess of Cornwall has been the charity’s patron since 2014. She has previously hosted Medical Detection Dogs at a reception in St James’s Palace and she has also paid a visit to their headquarters just outside Milton Keynes.

Last December, Her Royal Highness participated in the ICAP charity day to support charities including Medical Detection Dogs and in 2015 donated the proceeds of her limited-edition honey from her private home in Wiltshire to the charity.

Medical Detection Dogs is a charity at the forefront of medical research. It aims to transform disease detection by harnessing the extraordinary smelling power of dogs to develop tests for a range of life threatening conditions including cancer. In training trials, the dogs have proved to be 93 percent reliable, significantly higher than many existing tests.

The charity’s ground-breaking work is already saving lives by providing a reliable, practical, affordable solution to one of the greatest medical challenges today. It trains assistance dogs for people with long-term, life-threatening conditions, giving them greater independence and improving their lives immeasurably.

In most cases, the medical alert assistance dogs help people suffering from type one diabetes, who get no warning signs when a hypoglycaemic or hyperglycaemic attack is about to occur. The dogs are trained to detect changes in their partner’s blood sugar levels and alert them to take insulin or eat sugar.